


Already Halfway Gone

by walkthegale



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, Fist Fights, Flirting, Friendship, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Pre-Femslash, Taverns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21992554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkthegale/pseuds/walkthegale
Summary: Beau regrets nothing.
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett/Yasha, Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett, Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett/Yasha, Jester Lavorre/Yasha
Comments: 11
Kudos: 195
Collections: Critmas Exchange 2019





	Already Halfway Gone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [rody241](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rody241/gifts).



> Set early in campaign 2, but not at any specific point in canon.

Beau watches herself punch the dude like it’s happening in slow motion. She knows it’s a really bad idea. The worst fucking idea, even. But there goes her fist all the same, sailing towards his stupid smug face.

It connects with a satisfying, meaty thud, and he goes flying backwards, crashing into the table behind him which promptly collapses, sending mugs and dishes clattering in all directions.

There’s a moment of absolute silence throughout the tavern, as he lies there in the wreckage of several people’s meals and, in that quiet, Beau turns to Jester. She’s not sure if she’s planning to apologise or what. She’s not really sorry. Jester had just been being her usual, chatty self, and the guy was being a total dick about everything she said - snide comments about the Traveler, and about Jester’s appearance, and then something really shitty about her parentage.

Yeah, fuck it, Beau regrets nothing.

Fortunately, she realises that Jester has jumped to her feet as well and is standing next to Beau, her grin wide and toothy and her fists balled at her sides. Beau can hear her own heartbeat thundering in her ears, louder than it has any right to be, and she smiles back at Jester.

“Oi!” A deep voice rings out, shattering the moment thoroughly. The dwarf who had previously been sitting at the destroyed table scrambles out of his chair. “That was my dinner, you knob!”

And he decks the dickhead dude, who hasn’t yet regained his own feet, right in the nose.

Things get a little blurry after that. Dickhead dude has friends, gods know why, and they jump into the fray with merry abandon, and then the dwarf’s tablemate gets involved, and it’s not like Beau could just leave it. Not after she started it.

Beau’s first thought is to protect Jester, but a gout of Sacred Flame shooting past her and knocking an incoming brawler flat on their ass tells her that Jester can probably protect herself. It’s something Beau is only beginning to get the hang of - that Jester can be so soft and so sweet and so _Jester_ , and yet so totally fucking badass in a fight.

There’s not a lot of time for her to have that thought. She avoids being clocked in the jaw by an embarrassingly narrow margin, so she gets her head back in the fight. Once she’s properly engaged, every move she’s been practicing recently fresh in her head, most of these shitheads don’t have a chance - she’s a whirlwind of flying fists and feet, dodging and weaving so fast they can barely get near her.

Out of the corner of her eye, as she elbows someone hard in the solar plexus, she spots Yasha poking her head around the door, clearly drawn by the noise from wherever she had been lurking outside after she told Beau and Jester that she needed some air earlier.

Yasha watches the fray for a moment, her expression almost speculative. And then she steps forward and grabs hold of a guy who was about to swing for the back of Jester’s head, getting a firm grip on his collar and lifting him entirely off the ground. She pulls him away from Jester, hardly seeming to notice the weight of him, his feet kicking at the air frantically, and she bares her teeth right in his face, a terrible and terrifying grimace. It’s hot as hell.

Beau is pretty sure he pisses himself with fear, and she just has time to crow, “Nice one, Yasha!” before her own immediate opponent manages to land a kick to her shins and she focuses on meting out a retribution that he’ll be feeling the effects of for weeks.

By the time someone near the door yells, “Crownsguard!” most of the room are too embroiled in the melee to notice. Beau, out of sheer, blind luck, happens to be near enough at that moment to hear the cry, and her reflexes are quick enough that she’s ducked under someone’s arm, dived around someone else, and got her hands on both Jester and Yasha before the rest of her brain has really had time to catch up.

“Time to go,” she hisses to them both, leading the way to a side door she spotted earlier. The crowd has become more of a scrum by now and it’s hard to navigate, and she has to punch another couple of people to get past, but that’s just kind of a bonus. Jester kicks a dude in the nuts and looks set to stop and have another go, but then Yasha grabs onto Jester’s upper arm and pulls her along with them, and they all three tumble out into the street just as Beau hears the first of the guard burst into the tavern through the main door behind them.

The night air is icy cold in Beau’s lungs. “Go, go, go,” she finds herself muttering, though there’s really no need - Jester and Yasha are both moving already, and all she has to do is run with them.

As they go, Beau hears a voice behind them yell, “You there! Stop!” and she doesn’t turn around to check who it might be addressing.

The streets are all lit up despite the late hour, multicoloured lanterns strung between the eaves of the buildings and bright, burning torches on every corner, marking this midwinter festival night. The light makes their attempted disappearance harder, but the crowd is thick, every street thronged with people, all eating and drinking and talking and dancing to the music that pours from half the establishments in the district, and that helps.

Footsteps following behind and another shout tell her they haven’t quite got away clean. Beau immediately finds herself ahead of the others, a combination of her natural speed, and a knack for slipping through gaps, finding spaces between people just the right size for her body. She holds herself back, focusing on not losing track of either of them. They’re all going to get out of this - there’s no way in any of the hells that she’s going to jail tonight, and she’ll be damned if she’s going to let her friends get arrested because she couldn’t hold her stupid temper.

As they finally round a corner into a quieter alleyway, Beau notices Jester’s form flicker next to her, and the blue blur of fleeing tiefling is replaced by a stocky grey-haired half-elf with a face full of wrinkles. The newly disguised Jester stops, her hand jerking free of Beau’s.

“What are you -”

“Shut up, Beau,” Jester speaks fast, looking from Beau to Yasha, her voice incongruous coming from that mouth. “I have a really good idea. You two go that way, and I’ll catch up with you.” Beau must have let her doubt show on her face, because the elderly forehead creases even more and Jester adds, “Just trust me, ok?”

Beau trusts Jester. It’s a fucking weird feeling and she doesn’t know what to do with it. She trusts Jester with her life.

Yasha nods to Jester, her eyes sharp and clear. “Come on, Beau.”

Beau and Yasha take off into the dim depths of the alley, moving fast and quiet. Behind them, Jester steps out into the light, right into what must be the path of the oncoming Crownsguard. The cry that follows only sounds like Jester because Beau knows that it must be, but she’s done an impressive job of disguising her voice to match her form.

“Oh, sir, oh help me sir, please, they stole my purse! They stole my purse with all my gold in it, and they ran off that way. Three of them!”

Beau doesn’t hear what happens next. She scans the dark walls on either side of her frantically, searching for an escape route as they run, hoping against hope that something shows up before they hit a dead end. And then there it is. A roof with an overhang low enough that…

“Hey Yasha!” Beau skids to a halt and Yasha barely manages not to smack into the back of her. Beau gestures in a generally upwards direction. “Can you give me a boost?”

There’s less than a moment’s pause and then Yasha gets it. She nods and bends down to hoist Beau up onto her shoulders, which gives Beau just the height she needs to reach up and grab onto a steady handhold.

Pulling her whole body up using just the strength of her arms is not Beau’s best skill - she’s nimble and can mostly climb with ease, but this particular task, from this particular angle, asks for sheer muscle power. Fortunately Yasha’s hands are there, firm and strong on Beau’s hips and then her thighs, urging her upwards, providing that extra bit of lift she needs. From there it’s easy, her well-honed instincts taking over to carry her safely onto a fairly flat part of the roof.

She takes a breath and turns to help Yasha, only to find Yasha already halfway up to her already. Beau grins. “Couldn’t keep away from me, huh?”

Yasha grunts in reply, which, sure, is better than no response would have been. Beau will take it.

Beau thinks that Yasha might manage to pull herself all the way up on her own, but then she misses a handhold in the shadows and flails at the air, seeming to keep herself from falling through sheer force of will alone. Beau reaches down and Yasha takes her proffered hand gratefully, her feet scrabbling for a moment against the wall before she finds purchase and hauls herself the rest of the way onto the roof.

Onto the roof and practically into Beau’s arms. There’s a fraction of a moment where it’s nice, Yasha’s weight leaning against her, but then Yasha stiffens and it’s suddenly really fucking awkward.

Beau steps back, fast, doesn’t meet Yasha’s eyes.

She looks, instead, back over the edge of the roof, finally daring to check whether they’ve been followed. The alleyway below seems clear and still, and she can’t hear anything beyond the semi-distant sounds of the festival’s revelry. Maybe Jester’s plan worked. Maybe. Or maybe they’ll be busting Jester out of jail later, having abandoned her to her fate. _Shit_.

“Let’s go,” she says, and Yasha’s there at her shoulder. Yasha isn’t stupid. She follows in Beau’s footsteps across the rooftops, trusting that Beau is more comfortable in this sort of territory than she is herself.

They move quietly together, against the backdrop of city sounds, the stars bright above them, scattered across the dark sky, and the patchwork of lanterns glowing in the streets below. It would have been almost romantic, or some shit like that, if Beau wasn’t getting more anxious with every street they see that doesn’t contain Jester.

It’s Yasha who spots her first. Beau gets a gentle elbow to the ribs and she follows Yasha’s gaze to a familiar elderly half-elf, moving through the crowd with just a touch more ease than might be expected.

There are no Crownsguard with her. None anywhere in sight. Beau lets out a long breath.

She turns to grin at Yasha, and finds Yasha already smiling at her. Later, Beau will assess the way her heart skipped a beat or two at Yasha’s gentle smile. Later. Probably. Or not.

Together they find a relatively quiet bit of the street and drop from the roof. The descent is far easier than the original climb and they land side by side with little difficulty, though they surprise the hell out of a human family, who usher their children hastily in the opposite direction.

“That was really fun, you guys!”

Jester, appearing next to them as if by magic, looks like herself again, and Beau feels an overwhelming surge of relief at the sight of her.

“Are you all right?” Yasha asks before Beau has a chance to, and Jester nods, a wicked grin creeping across her face.

“Of course!” she tells them, her voice bubbling with a clear, open mirth that Beau maybe envies a little. “The Traveler and me, we’re always ok, you know. That guard who was chasing us though, _he_ might not be ok - he fell right in the sewer! And then his friend had to help him get out and they were both _really_ stinky!”

Jester dissolves into infectious giggles, and it’s barely a moment before Beau is laughing too. She looks up and sees Yasha smiling at her and Jester both, that warmth of earlier back in her eyes.

And then Jester turns, quick as a flash, and plants a kiss on Beau’s cheek. She pulls back before Beau has even half a chance to process that, stands up on her tiptoes, and aims for kissing Yasha’s cheek as well, though even stretching as best she can, her lips only just manage to brush Yasha’s jawline.

Yasha blinks, a pink tinge immediately rising high on her cheekbones and across the bridge of her nose.

Beau is suddenly sure her own face is stained red as well, and she has no idea what to do to cover it up. She opens her mouth to say something that would definitely have been smooth, but nothing at all comes out. She gapes like a fish. Yeah, really smooth there. The smoothest.

Jester grins again, and slips her hands into one of each of theirs. Her fingers entwined with Beau’s are a little cool to the touch, and so very, very soft. “Come on,” Jester says, utterly indomitable. “Let’s go find the others and tell them about our really cool adventure!”

Beau glances at Yasha as they both follow Jester through the lively, winding city streets. Yasha looks about as flustered as Beau feels, and Beau wonders, just for a moment, if Yasha has the same curling heat in her belly that Beau can feel in her own. If Jester feels it too. She wonders, just for this one brief moment, what it might be like to actually kiss Jester or Yasha, for real, not just in her dreams.

She doesn’t let that thought persist for long. It’s too dangerous, far too complicated to consider, so she won’t. She just won’t.

They make their way to the tavern where the Nein have rooms for the night, where the rest of their friends will be waiting for them, doubtless with wild tales of their own evenings’ activities.

Their friends. Beau’s _friends_.

 _Fuck_.

She tightens her hand around Jester’s and feels Jester squeeze hers in return. She thinks about how she punched that shitty dude and started all this off, how Jester and Yasha joined her without hesitation, and she finds she still doesn’t regret it. She doesn’t regret it at all.


End file.
